What Makes a Good Guide for Hunting TV?

Harry is incredibly confident and honest. He cracks me up because he lacks the motivation piece. He really doesn't seem to care about the publicity much although he makes it clear the print is at least interesting to him while TV, well, TV isn't going to sell any of his hunts. You know what? I think he's right. So how is it he's a thousand times easier to work with than the dozen or more pain in the ass North American guides who could actually book hunts off of TV and yet feel the need to argue when I ask for a cut shot?

Harry complies easily with my requests for everything from reenactments, to interviews to cut shots. It is a pleasure to work with him. What motivates him? I guess just being a solid human being and an excellent host. Seriously, I always leave there wanting to be a better human being.

My favorite story of Trent's cheerfulness and positivity is around when the phone rang one morning in the lodge during Mike Schoby's cougar hunt. Without being able to do his awesome accent, this will lose something, but read this with a heavy rural Colorado accent.

Phone rings€¦ Trent: 'Yep, yep. Uh huh. Yep! Yep! '

He hangs up the phone. Schoby excitedly as he pulls on boots: 'Did he cut a track? '

Trent: 'Nope, nope. We're gonna' go get breakfast. '

Bruno knows his business. We've made three TV shows together now and are taping another one in the spring. I'm looking forward to it completely because Bruno knows and respects my work. He's enjoyed the fruits of his involvement with both the magazine and the TV show and frankly, he just does what I ask.

On the down side, he panders to my senior citizen boss by playing Lionel Richie in the car. This can be forgiven only because he takes me kayaking on the Mediterranean Sea.

He's the reason I wrote this blog. It's been awhile since I was out with just a plain old 'got his shit together ' guide and Doyle reminded me that they exist. Doyle is like every guide in these photos and in my list of the Greatest TV Guides on the world. He is honest and confident. He is also looking at TV and print coverage to grow his already amazing business further. When I first met Doyle he absolutely exuded genuine confidence. As a camera monkey, this usually means I'm not going to have to kill myself to do my job. Once we were out in the field, it was clear why he was so confident; we were surrounded and outnumbered by a fantastic number of bulls and a great cow to bull ratio and the son of a gun can call elk like he's one of them. We barely touched the massive expanse of land Doyle leases and pulled off a successful bow hunt in two days with the best elk footage I've ever captured. Doyle is fun, funny, relaxed, enthusiastic, a consummate professional and one hell of a guy to hang out with. Not to mention he sounds like a great dad from the way he goes on about his son. Panicked guides don't listen. They rush and refuse my requests because they mistakenly believe that if there is an animal on the ground, the taping is a success. They rush everything. I wish I could post a list of these morons.

We hunted together a second time and hit it off. Despite the fact that there wasn't much love between us the first time out, he did what I asked in the interest of making a good show. Again, this was in the very beginning of PHTV, so I was asking for much more than I needed, much more than I do today. He did it and without griping. Plus he's a funny son of a gun and one of those guys you can just plain count on.

But if you go back and watch this episode, you will see unfettered confidence in action. It's one thing to tuck a hunter into a cozy whitetail blind and assure him he'll see something soon as you lock him in for the morning, but it's entirely different to explain that if he climbs for four to six hours up the side of a rock, he'll get within range of that white furry thing. Oh, and yes, it's a billy.